Street-level bureaucrats serve nonvoluntary clients lacking alternative service options

Evidence

Clients in street-level bureaucracies are nonvoluntary. This point is obvious in coercive public agencies such as police departments, but it also applies when the coercive dimensions of the relationship between the agency and the client are less clear. This is because street-level bureaucracies often supply essential services which citizens cannot obtain elsewhere. Government agencies may have a monopoly on the service, clients may not be able to afford private services, or they may not have ready access to them. Potential welfare recipients in a sense “volunteer” to apply for welfare, for example, but their participation in the welfare system is hardly voluntary if they have no income alternatives. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 420

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the nonvoluntary client as the defining structural feature distinguishing street-level bureaucracy from market transactions.
• XREF: connects to: Poor clients’ agency involvement is nonvoluntary when no real alternatives exist

Broader Connections

• Poor clients’ agency involvement is nonvoluntary when no real alternatives exist #corroborates (0.95)